“If I were dead,” Topper amended.
“Yeah.”
“And this shocking ace?”
“Dunno,” Jerry said, “Cameo had all this junk in her backpack. Said she could summon a shocker with some hat. Never saw it, I… left the mission early.”
Topper squeezed Sam’s hand, and he squeezed back, and they walked a long while in silence before Topper said, “So you planning to out her? For putting her ace back up her sleeve, I mean, after Peri and everyone laughed at it?”
“Well, maybe Peri…”
“Would laugh at you too,” Topper finished. “Face it, Jerry-Cameo may have the perfect motive, but she’s also got a perfect alibi. And even if she confessed, Peri wouldn’t believe her.” She paused. “And in the scheme of ace pranks, zapping someone’s butt is pretty trivial. You’d out someone for that? You, of all people?”
“It was probably Jim’s remote anyway,” Sam said.
Jerry paused. ““This sort of thing happens?”
“Since we were kids. You should have seen it when he took drivers ed. The car was an automatic.”
“You know, Jerry,” Topper said, “you could still catch a movie…”
“Hmm… the Metreon is showing all the Hammer Draculas. Including Brides.” The starlet looked pensive. “Those girls in the nightgowns are really hot…”
“And they’re waiting for you,” Topper said. “Look, there’s a cab.”
Jerry looked, then ran for it, waving.
“She’s bisexual, right?” Sam asked. “’Cause regular lesbians don’t set Alec-”
“Jerry’s a special case,” Topper said, shutting him off, “and yes, our agency is a detective agency.”
“Isn’t she a bit young?”
“You’re not one to talk, young man.” Topper squeezed his hand. “But you should see Pete. Not that that matters right now since we know-”
There was a flutter of feathers and gold sequins as Peregrine alighted. “You’re needed on stage, Sam.”
“But-”
“But nothing. You’re the best thing to happen to jokers rights in ten years.” She scooped him up in both arms and Sam and his sketchbook were pressed against the famous cleavage as the flying ace took off, speaking into her headset, “Got him. Cue the Boys for our entrance.” They swept up into the air, then down, and Sam felt his stomach lurch as Peregrine folded her wings in a power dive, fanning them out as they entered the lobby, then folding them again as they plunged through the doors into the main theatre, swooping over the heads of audience. The crowd went wild, with cheers and screams, and Roger’s voice boomed, “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MY BROTHER, SAM-OUR ACE COVER ARTIST, SWASH!”
Peregrine landed with him and Roger pressed a microphone into his hands. “Jokertown Blues, Sam. C.C.’s version-your lead.”
Sam felt his mouth go dry, but Dirk pressed a bottle of water into his hand and Sam took a swig, realizing that the drummer’s presence meant that Jim’s mad ace was somehow still playing the instruments. He hoped it could take a cue: “And a One-Two-Three!
If you go down to Jokertown
Anyone you might see
Might be a little old lady
Name of Juju Marie
She might look like you
She might look like me
But there’s mighty mean momma
Name of Juju Marie
The radios had played that fourteen years ago, C.C. Ryder’s version of the old Mr. Rainbow song, when Sam and Roger’s parents had taken them to Jokertown for the day. And while they hadn’t met the old blues witch, they’d run into her counterpart, Typhoid Croyd, their parents dying, Sam and Roger going to the J-town orphanage.
If you go down to Jokertown
Better watch what you say
Or that little old lady’s
Gonna blow you away
“Toads and Diamonds,”
That’s what she sings,
“Jokers, and Aces,
And Black Queens and Kings”
Sam put his heart into that verse. ‘Kings’ was J-town slang for latents, shorthand for ‘suicide kings,’ the sword of Damocles of the wild card suspended over every latent’s head until it finally dropped, usually ending in death, sometimes maiming even worse than death.
He’d been a latent for eleven years and a deuce for only three. He knew what it felt like.
If you go down to Jokertown
You better pray hard
That a little old lady
Don’t deal you a card
You might start to weep
You might start to wail
You might feel an urge
To start a-shaking your tail!
Sam did so, flaunting the thing that set him apart from human, the joker that he could have but would never have removed. The audience went wild, girls screaming, snatching and grabbing for it as he danced out of the way.
Then his lion’s tail wasn’t the only one on stage. Alicorn leapt onto the end of the runway, John Fortune dismounting, and the unicorn began slowly walking along the ramp to the adulation of the virgins and somewhat less virginal teenyboppers on both sides as the rest of the Boys joined in on the next verse:
If you go down to Jokertown
Well, you might just stay there
’Cause that mean ol’ woman
Who deal cards, she ain’t fair
If you lose, you win
If you win, you lose
What I’m talking about
Is called the Wild Card Bluuuuuuues…